Some of us are habitually victims, doormats, and “poor things.” No matter what, we never say no. The more we practice being nice guys the less able we are to cope creatively. We place the blame, along with the responsibility, elsewhere.

Darlene modeled this for all of us at a recent meeting. She is well past fifty and has been divorced for twenty years. Yet she is still seeking sympathy for what her husband – and God -did to her. Twenty-five years ago she inherited fifty thousand dollars from her parents’ estate. Bit by bit, as she said, her alcoholic husband spent it all. It wasn’t that she gave it to him or failed to manage it herself, she explained. What happened was that he “just spent it all up. How could he do that?” The obvious, healthier question never occurred to her: How could she allow a sick person to eat up a small fortune?

The moral of the story is that being “too nice” isn’t our problem.

Today, I will search my conscience for evidence of irresponsibility that I may have been filing under other names.

You are reading from the book:

Days of Healing, Days of Joy by Earnie Larsen and Carol Larsen Hegarty